Tag Archives: Lockdown confusion

2020 Memories are made of this

Diary of a Self-isolator: Day 292 [31 December 2020]
or Goodbye 2020, if I never see you again will it be too soon?

Published: 31 December 2020 ~ 2020 Memories are made of this

The End is Nigh! Well, you would think so from the aggregated hype bubbling furiously over the past 12 months in the cauldrons of the western media. Never before in recent history has the press had the opportunity to indulge itself in a Groundhog Field Day like the one that has been handed to them by the pandemic (or is that scamdemic?). But enough of the soothsaying and a tad more soothing-saying, if you don’t mind. The end is nigh for 2020: Time to reflect on the past 12 months.

My period of voluntary self-isolation began back in March 2020, and like most people I have evaluated the quality of my life during this epoch as a series of stops, starts and checks. However, on looking back I realise that although the impediment of coronavirus fear and its attendant restrictions have cast a long shadow over our social life, it never succeeded in inflicting a total eclipse. As my wife is fond of saying, “Humans can adapt to anything in time”, and whilst in my books I have committed the cardinal sin by steering clear of bars and other places where people tend to congregate, in retrospect 2020 was far from totally written off. Indeed, in spite of muzzle-wearing and fetishistic hand-sanitising, we did still have a life ~ we met friends, took several trips to the coast, visited art galleries and places of historical interest, entertained at home and, most importantly, used the extra time that we had at our disposal in the most constructive ways.

We certainly managed to get more done around the house and in the garden ~ especially in the garden. This is Olga’s pet project: converting what was a slab of inherited concrete into a proper, functioning outdoor area, where she can enjoy the flowers and trees, and I can enjoy a pint.

Years ago, in the mists of a different time, I worked on a magazine called Successful Gardening, from which I learnt that my greatest contribution to any practical endeavour in this field would be to make myself scarce, which is exactly what I did. So, I have to confess that the lion’s share of the work was done by my wife. Yet, I feel no need for excuse making. Gardening is a sport, and like any other sport, some you participate in; in others you are a spectator.

Where coronavirus is concerned, it is for my family and friends back in the UK that I feel the most sorry. The UK media has not had the opportunity to be this gory and ghastly in its coverage since Jack the Ripper terrorised Whitechapel. Not even brutal acts of terrorism, which are officially swept under the carpet by deflection techniques that focus on holding hands and candle-lit vigils, come close to the penny dreadful coverage that coronavirus receives. It would not be half so bad if 1 + 1 = 2, but nothing about the measures being taken to combat coronavirus in the UK ~ the draconian measures ~ seems to add up, and, as with Brexit, the country appears to be split yet again, and uncannily yet again, as with Brexit, the fault lines are political and a peculiar inversion of the status quo.

In complete contradiction to the overt emphasis placed at any other time on civil liberties and the evils of the so-called surveillance society, 1984 and all that, it is the left that appears to be screaming for lockdown, mask-wearing and any other hard and fast rules. Indeed, they do not seem to be able to get enough of it, and, with the illiberality that is customary with liberals, are spitting tar and feathers at anyone who is impudent enough to advocate liberty above home slavery. The megaphone message is: Do as you are told! Stay in! Don’t go anywhere, or we are all going to die!!.

Admittedly, there are a lot better things to do with your time than dying but is being bolted and barred in your home for what little there is left of your life it? The older we become the more precious life becomes, but so does living your life. It is the Bitch of having been born at all.

The problem, or at least one of the salient problems of getting old ~ and for some inexplicable reason we all tend to do it, get old, I mean ~ is that you reach the stage where you think you can hear each grain of sand dropping into the hour glass, and whilst it is normal on the push-penny arcade machine of life to brace yourself for the moment when inevitably your turn will come, when you will be bumped off down the chute, the media over the past 12 months has not missed a trick in reminding us that the man with the cowl and scythe is busier than he has ever been pushing coins into the slot.

No one can deny that there has been a lot of death about, and sadly we were not spared. Our good friend, Stanislav (Stas) died in November 2020. Immediately, rumours abounded that he had died of coronavirus, the majority of people having become so obsessed with the virus that it has become almost impermissible to die from anything else. Stas did not die from coronavirus. But he did die, and with his passing we lost a very good and much-loved friend.

Without doubt, one of the most perplexing things about getting older is that not only do you have to come to terms with your own mortality, you also have to come to terms with the loss off those who are nearest and dearest. Each loss tears a hole in the fabric of life that can never be repaired.

But enough of this morbidity. Like everything in life, what some people lose on the swings others gain on the merry-go-rounds, and whilst we can conclude that whereas it has been a troubled year for most of us, especially those on the frontline ~ doctors, nurses, paramedics and the rest ~ if you have the good fortune to be a mask producer, the director of a pharmaceutical industry, a media magnate, I do not suppose that Mr Coronavirus seems such a bad fellow after all, and this is without mentioning the increased yields experienced in the funeral industry.

Enough said: In a consummately original and unplagiaristic moment, my valediction for the year 2020 is that it was ‘the best of years, ‘t’was the worst of years’.

Think of 2020 as a painful tooth that needs to be extracted by the dentist: you might miss it, but you will certainly be glad it has gone …

Happy New Year
to One & All

Flowers in Olga Hart's Garden Kaliningrad

2020 Memories are made of this Mick Hart Woodoo Hairdressers Kaliningrad

Kaliningrad 2020 Mick Hart & Olga Hart Vintage Car

2020 Memories are made of this Mick Hart & Olga Hart

Olga Hart celebrates Kant's birthday Konigsberg

Mick Hart with relics Kaliningrad market

2020 memories are made of this

England Lockdown Déjà Vu Scare

Déjà Vu & The Man in the Iron[y]ed Mask

Published: 2 November 2020

Surely, the irony cannot have escaped anybody’s attention, that is to say the date on which Boris Johnson proposes to submit England to a new round of severe lockdown restrictions. When? November the 5^th. Talk about pissing on your fireworks! Let’s hope that Guy Fawkes doesn’t own a time machine!

For me, personally, the sudden but by no means unexpected surge in coronavirus cases has solved one puzzle. It has ended my indecisiveness as to whether or not I should change the title of one of my post series from ‘self-isolation’ to ‘social distancing’.

Would I be resident in the UK, the choice would no longer be mine to make. The new title would be lockdown. But here, in Kaliningrad, Russia, no such lockdown exists and, as at the time of writing, there is no intimation of one being implemented sometime soon.

Nevertheless, this seemingly clear-cut situation compared to that in the UK has done nothing to ease the difference in opinion that persists between myself and my friend and sparring partner, Ginger Cat Murr, about how we approach life now that coronavirus is once again in the ascendancy.

The difference is a nuanced one. Both of us are batting from the same wicket when it comes to lockdown. We share the belief that any benefits derived from such draconian measures, and there aren’t any, at least proven ones, are offset by the detrimental psychological impact that lockdown is having in its breakdown and fragmentation of normal human relationships ~ proof of which there is plenty.

We both believe, therefore, that the role of those in authority should be to guide and not dictate, and that the decision to what extent he or she decides to isolate themselves should be a matter of individual choice.

Admittedly, at the outset of coronavirus, earlier this year, I fully supported lockdown, as it was, without doubt, a sensible precaution to take as we travelled into the unknown. But that was then and now is now. In moving on we would do well to consider the almost 100-year-old maxim: adapt, adopt and improve.

Thus, as much as I balk against using such media catchphrases as New Normal, if it has taught us anything it is that Covid-19 is here to stay and that there is not only no quick fix but at the moment no fix, full stop.

Less than three months ago, the media was awash with vaccine-race stories, the implication being that at any moment the Lone Ranger would be riding on down to rescue us from Black Hat Corona. Now, we are told that although the vaccine, or myriad vaccines, are on course and will be rolled out soon, there is no silver bullet. It makes you think that someone should be given the bullet, and that it would not be a bad thing if whoever it is fired at it should ricochet a while throughout the world of science and the media.

That being as it should, back to our argument; I mean the debate between Ginger Cat Murr and myself on the pros and cons of lockdown.

Where our opinions diverge is that whilst we are both anti-enforced lockdowners, I have no problem at this point in time of entertaining a limited period of house arrest in order, if it works, to take pressure off the NHS and to give the science community and pharmaceutical companies time to test, develop, produce and distribute the once-vaunted vaccines/drugs, even if, as realists suggest, the end result will be less of a precision hit as we have been led to believe and more like the discharge from a sawn-off shotgun. Well, better hit and miss than no hit at all.

Ginger Cat Murr, on the other hand, sticks like glue to the mantra that the policy should be to protect the vulnerable as best we can and allow the rest, those who do not fit into this category, the freedom and intelligence of individual choice, taking up the logic cudgel that shutting some venues, like pubs and restaurants, whilst keeping other places open is a bit like being in first gear and reverse at the same time. In other words, Ginger Cat Murr is firmly behind the Great Barrington Declaration.

England Lockdown Déjà Vu Scare

In the UK, the debate appears to be going the way Brexit went. The country is becoming polarised into two distinct camps: those that want and welcome lockdown and those that don’t. And here there is a funny (as in bizarre) thing happening. Take a look at these headlines from the UK’s online media:

The Independent [2 November 2020] ~ ‘We need better leadership to beat the virus – not more of Boris Johnson’s false promises’

The Guardian [2 November 2020] ~ ‘The Guardian view on a second lockdown: what took him so long?’

The Independent [1 November 2020] ~ ‘This lockdown is better late than never, but it would have been even better in September’

Making allowances for the usual, and inevitable, ‘party political broadcast on behalf of …’ does it appear to you that it is primarily the liberal left who are rooting for lockdown? If so, how strange? I would have thought that the very word ‘lockdown’ would be sufficient to ignite cries of totalitarian agenda from the usual suspects, and that any government, but particularly a Tory government, advocating such policies would be condemned out of hand for launching an assault against our sacred ‘uman rights! But then, as we all know, liberalism and rationale …?

England Lockdown Déjà Vu Scare

The insult-to-injury kernel of this nut, the lockdown debate, not partisan politics, and what I would hazard a guess will prove to be the enduring symbol of early 21^st century angst, by which history will judge our governments, scientists and media, has to be the face mask.

Who would have thought, before coronavirus came along, that this little piece of material slapped across your face would be such a bone of contention? It alone defines the division between those who do as they are told and those who do otherwise? But it represents more than that, a great deal more.

The mask symbolises the confused messages that have launched a thousand conspiracy theories; obfuscated the issue like no other; completely and totally undermined our trust, not only in politicians but also, and more importantly, in the credibility of our scientists, whose case for and against mask wearing veers from claims that masks can trap the virus to masks are perfectly useless, with the disturbing caveat that in the worst case scenario the improper use of masks can aid and abet viral transmission.

What is the proper way of using and wearing a mask? Don’t ask, because once you have the answer you will realise that unless you are a walking ‘laboratory condition’ living in a hermitically sealed sterile environment, your chances of success are about as odds-on as winning the lottery.

Do I personally wear a mask? Don’t we all? [Leonard Cohen: “And if you want another kind of love, I’ll wear a mask for you.”] Well, that all depends, of course, on what I am doing and where I am. But in the ongoing struggle against coronavirus, I do just as much as the rules necessitate, albeit without conviction (in both senses!)

To end on a more personal note, I must confess that I do derive a certain degree of amusement from observing the relationships between individuals and their masks.

Whilst there are some people whose masks seem to have become a sort of never-to-be-removed fungus that they have assiduously adhered to their mug, others do seem to have adopted a loose, indeed very loose, definition of what mask-wearing entails and, by default, what they expect to achieve by it. The best example of this are those that plaster their masks about their mouth but have their noses hanging out, as if the proboscis during this particular pandemic has ceased to play any meaningful part in the respiratory process.

I remember seeing something on Facebook that compared wearing a mask in this way to the unlikely practice of men wearing their pants with their willy over the waistband. (I’m sorry? Have you something you wish to confess to, comrade?)

It would appear that coronavirus mask-wearing has led some of us to completely reinvent our faculty for breathing; why else would anyone wear their mask on their chin or tuck it into their throat as if it is a cravat? And what of those naughty people who in spite of ‘rules are rules’ deliberately flout them and do not wear a mask. Are they rebels? Selfish anti-social miscreants? People who have a justifiable grievance against mask-wearing, ie they believe that they facilitate viral transmission rather than prevent, or cannot wear a mask for medical reasons? Or, in the last analysis, could they be mask wearers of an unconventional kind, ie wearing a mask but not on their face!

Ask yourself this question: Every time you see someone without a mask, is he or she really maskless or have they got one secreted about their person, wearing it in the most unlikely of places? So far, I have not seen any authoritarian rules about how to wear your mask, only that you must wear one! So, where and how you wear it is open to interpretation. And there are cases, of course, where people should be exempt. Take The Invisible Man, for example, there would be as much logic in him wearing a face mask as, er, repetitive bouts of lockdown?

UK Coronavirus Confusion Strategy

At least we can all die laughing

Published: 11 May 2020

The media may be slating Boris Johnson this morning over his obscurantist speech the day before, but I for one found it intensely amusing. I haven’t laughed so much in years. If I’d have been wearing false teeth at the time, I would most likely still be looking for them.

I am not altogether sure what is most amusing, Boris attempting to provide us with a catch-all solution when there is not one, or Joe (and Joanna) Public betting everything on an answer tailor-made for them and then being disappointed when they did not get it. Perhaps Boris should have filmed his address to the nation with Sooty’s magic wand in his hand, and then we would all feel better.

UK Coronavirus Confusion Strategy

Who was it who sang “Do you know where you’re going to, do you like the things that life is showing you?”

Is it the media, not our politicians, that have led us up the garden path and into the maze into which we now find ourselves? Consider the following headlines and out-takes from online news reports over the last two months:

Derbyshire Police force was heavily criticised for using a drone to “shame” people walking with members of their household in the Peak District. (27 March 2020)
[What a terrible thing for the police to do. But aren’t they supposed to be enforcing the isolating rules?]

Coronavirus lockdown likened to ‘police state’ by former Supreme Court judge (30 March 2020)
[So, does that mean that lockdown is unnecessary, bad, to be avoided? Was the Supreme Court established by Tony Blair?]

UK police warned against ‘overreach’ in use of virus lockdown powers (30 March 2020)
[Police should enforce lockdown rules, but they haven’t got the power to do so?]

Keir Starmer calls for ministers to set out plans to end lockdown (15 April 2020)
[Lockdown should end]

Coronavirus: Labour calls for lockdown exit strategy this week (15 April 2020)
[Labour wants an ‘exit strategy’]

‘Blair and Brown never missed Cobra meetings (19 April 2020)
[And? ~ Ahh, so perhaps it’s a positive thing that Boris has missed some of them?]

Coronavirus: Which are you? Britons are reacting to lockdown in one of three ways (27 April 2020)
[Hoorah! It’s just a game]

Fearful Britons oppose lifting lockdown (2 May 2020)
[But many people are opposed to lockdown, aren’t they?]

Coronavirus: UK to bring in two-week quarantine for air passengers (9 May 2020)
[Why are people still flying into the UK? Why wasn’t this done earlier? Why are we in lockdown when people are still flooding in from other countries?]

I’m losing my teenage years (9 May 2020)
[And?]

‘Recipe for chaos’: union leaders sound warning over return to work (10 May)
[But I thought lockdown was tantamount to a police state and should it not be ended? And hasn’t the Labour party called for an end to it?]

Doctors and police warn of new coronavirus wave as UK lockdown weakens (10 May)
[But I thought people wanted out of lockdown, as does the Labour party?]

Boris Johnson suggests coronavirus lockdown will be loosened on Monday (6 May)
[That should please Labour as they want an ‘exit strategy’ and want lockdown to end, don’t they?]

Boris Johnson’s lockdown release condemned as divisive, confusing and vague (10 May)
[It didn’t please Labour. If they have an exit strategy, perhaps they should tell Boris]

BBC’s Marr stuns Ashworth after blaming Labour for lockdown chaos ‘Take responsibility!’ (11 May 2020)
[Truth is stranger than fiction]

And this is without citing the plethora of news stories about strange new symptoms …

UK Coronavirus Confusion Strategy

So, here we are in the Coronavirus Maze and we just do not know how to get out of it.

Economists, scientists, healthcare professionals, business consortiums, psychiatrists, ‘experts’, MPs, all scampering this way and that looking for the exit and the strategy that goes with it. But the most confused, and we could argue the perpetrators of confusion, seem to lie with certain ladies and gentlemen of the press. Does the confusion lie in a desperate almost hysterical pursuit of political point-scoring: which way and how can Boris and Boris’s government be discredited and the current crisis used to pave the way for Labour’s resurgence?

An extremely cynical friend of mine, who has always voted Liberal Democrats, opined, “Perhaps it would be better if a Labour government was in power. We might be on the edge of the precipice waiting for the final push, but at least if we go over we would meet our end with Labour right behind us, after all they have been pushing that way for years.”